Wrath of Khan questions

tomBitonti · Jun 12, 2018

Bigger Nebula problems:

What confines their motions? Unless the Nebula is tiny, they ought not to remain close, (nor in the same plane) for very long.

In the movie the ships make passes across the same small area of the nebula (or somehow keep ending up close to rah other despite chance).

TomB

ART! · Jun 12, 2018

Erekose said:
Remember at this point in the films Spock hasn’t resolved his issues with Sarek. As Kirk knows this, he wants to give him a hero’s funeral (the equivalent of a vikings funeral but entering the atmosphere of the Genesis Planet creating the fire rather than arrows) rather than the debacle of a funeral Kirk expects him to get back on Vulcan.

Umbran said:
3) Harsh? No. The Enterprise crew had been his chosen family for decades at this point.

These are really good points.

Erekose said:
Remember the Enterprise is a big ship so maybe it just wasn’t Chekov’s rotation on the bridge but Khan saw him in passing elsewhere? He could easily have found his name when searching the computer archive.

Yeah, I just figured he saw Chekov's entry on the ships crew files when he was memorizing everything about the ship with his superior intellect. Chekov was maybe not even an officer yet or whatever, but working in some non-bridge position.

Eltab · Jun 12, 2018

Mustrum_Ridcully said:
3) I think that's basically the space equivalent of burial at sea, and probably considered appropriate for Starfleet Officers.

Agreed.
Earlier, McCoy has an entire Sick Bay -full of engineer-trainees with burns, smoke inhalation, vacuum-breathing, radiation poisoning, and other injuries. Spock's funeral was not the only one performed (Scotty's nephew!), just the only one shown in the film.

Janx · Jun 12, 2018

ART! said:
Yeah, I just figured he saw Chekov's entry on the ships crew files when he was memorizing everything about the ship with his superior intellect. Chekov was maybe not even an officer yet or whatever, but working in some non-bridge position.

Good point. I was researching start trek dates for the TOS crew for a project, if we assume Chekov is assigned to the Enterprise when he appears on screen, he's a year into the 5 year mission. But startrek.com's lame database says otherwise. He was there before we effectively see him.

trappedslider · Jun 12, 2018

so..Nebula don't behavior like water in a fish tank when injected with dye?

Ryujin · Jun 12, 2018

Umbran said:
I know. Graduate education in physics here.

The nebula does not match real universe nebulae. Fine. The question with science fiction is not whether it is technically correct all the time. If that were the question, we'd discard Trek as soon as they turned on a warp drive. The issue with science fiction is, if we take the technical deviations as given, is the story internally consistent?

No. They have FTL drives so that they can specifically cross the vast, empty distances between tiny specks of rocks to seek out habitable worlds. They *very carefully aim* their rocks to hit habitable worlds. And when they miss, they change the direction the rock is flying.

There is a sort of narrative anthropic principle that applies in most of science fiction - the action happens on habitable worlds because more interesting stories happen among people than among airless rocks.

There are many instances of unlikely or virtually impossible convergences in Star Trek. V'ger anyone? This would just be one more.

Umbran · Jun 13, 2018

Ryujin said:
There are many instances of unlikely or virtually impossible convergences in Star Trek. V'ger anyone? This would just be one more.

V'ger is not an impossible convergence. Voyager is *found* by a race/entity far more advanced than the Federation, which implies long-range sensors far more advanced than the Federation's. And then it is *sent* back to its origin. When there's a nigh godlike technological race out looking for stuff, no luck or convergence is required.

Umbran · Jun 13, 2018

tomBitonti said:
Bigger Nebula problems:

What confines their motions? Unless the Nebula is tiny, they ought not to remain close, (nor in the same plane) for very long.

If I recall correctly, they are searching for each other, and they both know they searching for each other. Under those conditions, you don't head off in a straight line (that's an escape move). They are both generally circling and searching around their last known location, hoping to bump into each other.

Ryujin · Jun 13, 2018

Umbran said:
V'ger is not an impossible convergence. Voyager is *found* by a race/entity far more advanced than the Federation, which implies long-range sensors far more advanced than the Federation's. And then it is *sent* back to its origin. When there's a nigh godlike technological race out looking for stuff, no luck or convergence is required.

Not statistically impossible, but so close that it can be considered such. A tiny object traveling at non relativistic velocities for a couple of hundred years is found by machine society, that never found Earth?

Morrus · Jun 13, 2018

Ryujin said:
Not statistically impossible, but so close that it can be considered such. A tiny object traveling at non relativistic velocities for a couple of hundred years is found by machine society, that never found Earth?

I’m sure I heard it read that it was the Borg who found it. It went through a wormhole or something.